John Fanta is adding NBA play-by-play to his already packed résumé.
The NBC Sports college basketball voice will call his first NBA game for the network next Tuesday when the Minnesota Timberwolves visit the Portland Trail Blazers, Front Office Sports reported on Wednesday. Fanta will work alongside Jamal Crawford and Grant Liffmann, with the game airing on Peacock and NBCSN.
The Cleveland native has become one of the most recognizable voices in college basketball over the past few years. A 2017 Seton Hall graduate, Fanta spent seven years at Fox Sports before NBC hired him in August 2025 to be the lead Big East play-by-play announcer across Peacock and NBC. He’s also contributed to NBC’s college football coverage by providing game-breaking updates during Big Ten and Notre Dame broadcasts, and he made his Football Night in America debut in September.
Fanta has NBA experience, though not much of it has come on NBC. He called a Nets-Cavaliers game in Paris for NBA TV in January 2024 — while still at Fox — working remotely alongside Sarah Kustok, as Awful Announcing first reported. He’s also been part of NBA TV’s Draft coverage and hosts The Warmup pregame show for the league’s network. But this will be his first time calling an NBA game for NBC, and his first time doing so regularly as part of the network’s new rights deal, which brought the league back to NBC after more than two decades.
His NBA play-by-play debut comes as NBC is still building out its basketball coverage after securing rights to both the NBA and a massive college basketball portfolio. The network is airing more than 100 NBA games this season across NBC, Peacock, and NBCSN, with Mike Tirico serving as the lead play-by-play voice alongside Crawford and Reggie Miller. Noah Eagle, Terry Gannon, Michael Grady, and Mark Followill handle most of the secondary games, with Fanta now apparently in the mix as well for select matchups.
Fanta’s transition to NBA play-by-play is interesting because his entire professional identity has been built around college basketball. Whether Fanta’s college basketball style translates to the pros will be something worth watching when the Timberwolves and Trail Blazers tip off next Tuesday.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.